Catherine B Asher spoke to Indrajit Hazra about how tourism can be used to preserve the past, the need for a ‘strong, rational, well-funded’ ASI and why India needs better guides and signage at historical sites. Excerpts:

While India takes ‘pride’ in its historical and architectural heritage, it is also guilty of neglecting it. Is this something you have felt as a historian?

Yes, definitely. But I also need to be sensitive to the very limited resources at the disposal of those charged with protecting the past. I just came back from Tanzania, where there’s a much more aggressive effort to preserve the past. There, I read a report that makes a powerful case for the role of tourism in infusing financial resources into local economies, while conserving natural resources.

Because photography is not permitted in most Indian museums, there isn’t a body of tourists returning home with lots of images that could further stimulate new tourism. How different that is from Tanzania – no restrictions on photography – or, even better, China, where also there are neither restrictions on photography nor dual admission fees [separate for nationals and foreigners]. So, tourists return from China with images to show friends, thus stimulating new tourism and revenue that goes way beyond admission -- on hotels, food and souvenirs.

Do you think that private participation, such as that by the Aga Khan Foundation, will help?

It’s not just a matter of financial resources. The issue is human resources as well. Almost everything must be filtered through the Director General (DG), Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), even trivial requests. If I want to photograph at an ASI museum, I need to write to the DG for permission that should be routinely granted, but is a major bureaucratic process in India. If I go to any of Europe’s or the US’s major museums, I just photograph, no permissions needed. The Aga Khan Foundation and the Aga Khan Cultural Trust can infuse money. But there are issues that go beyond financial resources. I doubt there will be any meaningful change any time soon.

Religious fundamentalism has already claimed a structure such as the Babri Masjid. There are scratchy voices now bringing ‘more famous’

monuments, such as the Taj Mahal, into the fray. How does one engage and argue with such voices?

The issue in India is not so much engaging with those who wish to erase India’s Islamic past (and present) as it is to ensure the survival of monuments under threat. For that, we need a strong, rational, well-funded ASI. And that, in turn, depends on the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. As for the misinformation – and disinformation – there is reason to worry that voices of dissent will impact school textbooks and vastly increase the number who wish to rewrite India’s history by destroying the visual reminders of a past that some do not like.

We already see that in the US, where the PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) community in California is working – alas, with some success – to demand rewritten textbooks that take a Hindu nationalist point of view. In that case, it has come down to a very well-funded campaign by wealthy and strategically sophisticated PIOs versus academics, who have relied on Internet petitions.

Can tourism be a bigger catalyst in maintaining and disseminating India’s architectural heritage?

Tourism certainly can play a major role. But as I noted earlier, the structure of tourism needs to be dramatically changed. I have followed licensed guides at several of India’s major sites, listening to both their English and Hindi talks. The misinformation they provide is often quite worrisome. One solution might be to establish a balanced committee of historians to oversee the guides and the written information at sites. But in today’s politically charged environment, I’m not sure that a balanced committee is possible. The other thing desperately needed is new and more detailed signage. At Sarnath, signs say useless things, such as ‘Main Temple’. The idea of telling a story through monuments and signage seems largely alien to the thinking of the ASI. But a dynamic tourist policy certainly could bring about major changes. It could infuse significant resources into the economy and it could impact international perceptions of India.

What is the state of scholarship of pre-Mughal IIt Islamic art and architectural history when compared to Mughal or British colonial history?

There remains a huge amount to be learnt. But in the US and Europe, the trend has been for postgraduate students to focus much more on the present than on the past. In part, I think that is because there is so much more written documentation for the present; in part, it is because the study of the present requires little travel to remote parts of the country; and in part it is because students can be excused from gaining expertise in Sanskrit, Persian or other difficult languages. This trend has concerned many academics as it doesn’t pertain just to South Asia. One scholar has observed that 80% of all applications to US graduate schools in art history seek to work in modern or contemporary art, that is, in Asian, US, and European modern art. Almost daily I am reminded of David Lowenthal’s book, The Past is a Foreign Country.